


You Want A Better Story

by Withstarryeyes



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jane has a lot of guilt, Lisbon Worries, Not really specific either way, Patrick Jane Needs a Hug, Pre-Relationship, Protective Lisbon, Sick Character, Sick Patrick Jane, Sickfic, Soft Lisbon, or gen, sick Jane, sick patrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24991024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Withstarryeyes/pseuds/Withstarryeyes
Summary: Title from Richard Siken's Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed OutJane is sick after a case and Lisbon resigns herself to worrying about a man who doesn't want to be worried about.
Relationships: Patrick Jane & Teresa Lisbon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	You Want A Better Story

**Author's Note:**

> Never written a Mentalist fic before but really love the moments of Jane whump in the show. Figured I'd throw my hat into the ring with this fic. Hope you enjoy it!

Lisbon always feels the most amicable towards Jane at the end of the case. When the man is almost always sleep-deprived and right. When his words end in a closed case rather than sharp points, and they’re no longer aimed at her or her worst suspects. 

It’s in the quiet nights when Jane tips back on the couch and falls asleep–tending to the dark bags under his eyes and clearing up the cloudiness to the blue irises of his–and snores. It’s in the smell of pizza over ink and the taste of a good night’s work in burnt coffee and the plasticy end of her pen. 

It’s in starting the morning after, when Lisbon wakes Jane from the couch, send him home–where she knows he won’t sleep–content with his little progress, in the regression of wrinkles, even if it’s only for an afternoon. 

The end of this case comes as a surprise. The paperwork lengthy, the itchy feeling of putting away the wrong man–regardless of the fact that he was vile and a part of it anyway. The feeling that comes in a scapegoat who was more guilty than one should be but still not the real reason a life is no longer in the world. 

And Jane isn’t snoring. He’s just laying there, quiet and still as a corpse. He’s shivering into his jacket and Lisbon has to shake him awake–physically. Which is rare as Jane has an uncanny ability to open his eyes and meet her own when she’s barely in the vicinity of his person. She thinks it comes from his past, from the knowledge that he had been sleeping for so long only to wake to his wife and child gone. Peaceful one moment and then wrecked the next. It’s why he rarely sleeps and when he does it’s so light it’s really only a doze. 

She has to call his name three times before his eyes snap open, cloudy and dark, and dazed. 

“Jane?” It comes out startled, her vocal cords already noting what her brain hasn’t processed yet, that Jane is not okay and she has no idea why. 

He looks through her and it takes him a few seconds to track her fingers on his shoulder to her hair and then her face. She watches as his brain churns and spits out something like recognition. “I thought you went home,” he says, slowly and the words are only just clear like he had to separate them in his mouth, like they were sticking together. 

It sends ice slipping down her stomach, burning into her abdomen with plain as day fear. “Are you alright?”

Jane smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes–they rarely do, but when it does it’s usually after a case. “Fine, tell me, is the ceiling really on fire, or am I hallucinating?”

She whips around to stare at the bullpen, at the absence of smoke, then back to Jane whose eyes have shuttered closed again. She presses the back of her hand to his forehead, alarmed at the heat and tries to strip him of his jacket. He comes back immediately, pressing his hot palms into her knuckles. “I’m okay.”

“You’re burning up,” she snaps, too concerned to worry about the possible ammunition she’s handing Jane. Not even bothering to question if she’ll ever live this down, because it’s Jane and no matter their relationship she can’t actually imagine a world without him. 

“It’s just a fever., there’s no need to worry.”

“Too late,” Lisbon says, and sits back on her heels, thighs burning from crouching. “What time does Urgent Care open?”

“Eight?” Jane guesses, pressing himself straight and catching her eyes. “But I’m not going there.”

“No?” She says, dryly. The sun is rising behind him and she watches his cheeks flood with red and shadow, painting him like a burning angel, turning his golden hair a metallic crimson. 

“No. You are going to drive me home and then you are going to leave and go to sleep and come back here in three days to start the next case and you are not going to worry about me.”

“Good luck with that,” Lisbon says, putting an arm around Jane’s back and coaxing him into standing. She hates the grin on his face, the way the corners taunt her. The way she knows she’ll give in, that she’ll leave him there because he’ll give her a sad face and throw out a funny joke when there’s pain on his face and she won’t have it in her to contribute to it. 

She hates that she’ll go home and lay in her bed and think about whether Jane has baked his brain to death or whether he’s haunted by his late family and the knowledge that Red John is out there somewhere and he’s sick in bed. 

She hates that she knows Jane will live if only because Red John _is_ still out there, and Jane made a pact long ago that he’d only kill himself once he’s found penance for his crimes. 

So she leads him to her car, where she knows he’ll fiddle with the radio, and sets off to his house, where she knows she’ll let him out at the end of the drive and she listens to him ramble in a half-hearted attempt to distract her from his stupidity. 


End file.
